"Harry Potter" came out a few years after Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings."
Ahead of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" prequel, "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," an adamant fan took to IMDB's message boards to note the many similarities between "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter."

Cool. The only problem? He claimed 'LOTR" was a direct rip-off of the latter … instead of the other way around.

For the record, J.R.R. Tolkien published "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" in 1954. ("The Hobbit" was published several years earlier in 1937.) The first Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" came out in 1997.

"Overall, I like Lord of the Rings. However, I do feel that Tolkien kind of rips off Harry Potter in many ways. There are several parallels, such as elves, dwarfs, wizards, goblins, trolls, magic (especially invisibility), etc. Sauron is referred to as "Dark Lord" just like Voldemort is. There is also the elder white-haired bearded wizard who serves as a mentor, Gandalf, who is reminiscent of Dumbledore. Some of the character names are similar, such as Wormtongue as opposed to Wormtail, too. There is even a gigantic spider (Shelob) at the end of "The Two Towers" that reminds one of Aragog from Chamber of Secrets. I even noticed that the plots of both series begin with the protagonists' birthday. Now I see that Tolkien, this unoriginal bastard, is coming out with The Hobbit in December. This would be fine, but why didn't he just write this book first to begin with? I still like Lord of the Rings, though-don't get me wrong-but I wonder if Tolkien has ever said in interviews whether he borrowed elements from Harry Potter. I'll be watching the extended DVDs later this week and I think he's featured on the commentary track, so I look forward to that."